After shopping in the wet and cold all day yesterday, I woke up today a little under the weather. Since my husband has prescribed a day of bed rest, hot water bottles, and warm, honey infused beverages for me, I thought today would be the perfect day for me to write a post. And, since I haven't done a recipe post in while, I thought I would give you two of my favorite Christmas recipes.
So with dogs and kitties surrounding me, lets get on with the post!
One of the common themes for this holiday season, seems to be how quickly the holiday seems to be happening this year. My personal theory is it feels that way because Thanksgiving was so late this year. We usually have a buffer week after Thanksgiving and before December, and I think this week is when alot of us prep for the December holiday season. Without this buffer this year, we just hit the ground running and, wooh, its been a little exhausting.
So, to help with holiday preparations, I am giving you two very easy recipes that you can make for the season.
Cranberry Glazed Meatballs (The Cheating Version)
Now, I'm not gonna lie, if you insist on going old school with this recipe, it is a time consuming recipe. However, if you don't mind cheating (and it is still delicious if you cheat), this recipe can be a lifesaver for holiday parties and dinners.
Ingredients
1 cup cranberry port relish
(I always have this leftover and in my freezer from Thanksgiving, but you can also use canned cranberry sauce, it won't be as tangy, but its still pretty good. I thought that I had already posted the cranberry port relish recipe for y'all, but I can't find it, so I will include it at the bottom for you if you want to make that instead of going with the canned stuff.)
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
2 tbsp. low sodium soy sauce
2 tbsp. ketchup
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce (I actually let a little spill over when I am measuring, so it is slightly more than 2 tsp.)
1 tsp. brown sugar (light or dark will work, but I prefer dark)
1/4 cup water
2 lb frozen meatballs* (When I do not have my own meatballs in the freezer, I use premade homestyle packaged meatballs rather than Italian style packaged meatballs. Turkey meatballs are also good for this recipe.)
*If you want your meatballs to be a little more saucy, you can do the same amount of sauce but only do
one pound of meatballs.
Instructions
1. In a large, heavy bottomed saucepan, combine cranberry port relish, vinegar, soy sauce, Worcestershire, ketchup, sugar, and water.
2. Cook on medium-low heat, stirring until all ingredients are combined and heated through.*
3. Add the meatballs and cover the saucepan with a lid. Cook until heated through, about 12 - 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Put meatballs and sauce into crock pot on low heat and serve.
* If you start these early enough, you can put the meatballs and prepared sauce into a crock pot and cook on high for four hours until the meatballs are heated through and completely skip step three.
These are great on their own, or you can serve then with Spicy Sugar Plum Sauce.
Spicy Sugar Plum Sauce
First, I am sorry that I don't have precise measurements for this recipe, but I honestly just mix these ingredients in different measurements depending on what flavor I'm feeling most while preparing. So the key to this recipe is taste while you are making it to make it to suit you.
Ingredients
Trader Joe's Sugar Plum Jam (half a jar)
Baby Ray's Barbeque Sauce (1-2 tbsp)
White Wine Vinegar (1 tsp.)
Worcestershire Sauce (1/2 tsp - 1 tsp.)
Sriracha Sauce (1 tsp. - 2 tsp., depending on how spicy you want it)
Soy Sauce (1/2 tsp. to 1 tsp.)
Instructions
1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Microwave in a microwave safe bowl for about 45 seconds before serving. (Serve with the cranberry meatballs on the side in a little serving bowl.)
Christmas wouldn't be Christmas for most people without cookies. I looked up this tried and true family favorite to make this year and cracked up when I saw it. My great grandmother had written down the recipe - but if you had never made the recipe before, you were in trouble, because there wasn't a lot of instruction.
Take a look:
That's it. That's the whole recipe.
I think this is why so many family favorite recipes are so hard for the modern cook to recreate. Unless you made the recipe with your relative, you are missing some important steps. This is not intentional malice on the part of the cook, it is laziness. If you know a recipe, you tend to only write the things that you need to remind yourself. I do this all the time. I write down what I put in a recipe but I don't put how I put everything together and, many times, I don't even put measurements. So, for the sake of posterity, I am putting this recipe on this blog, with step by step instructions.
Ama Main's Swedish Butter Cookies
1 lb unsalted butter, room temperature* (you can use salted butter, but then reduce the salt you add to the recipe)
1 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
4 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp.vanilla
Sugar (for sprinkling)
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a blender or by hand, whip the butter and sugar together until they are light and slightly fluffy.
3. Add the eggs yolks and keep blending.
4. Add the flour, one cup at a time, blending each cup thoroughly, before adding the next cup.
5. Add the salt and the vanilla and keep blending until everything is blended all together.
6. On a non-stick cookie sheet, drop the dough onto the cookie sheet in teaspoon size measurements, you can make the cookies a tablespoon size if you would like, but they will have to cook slightly longer. (I also like to roll the cookies into balls before I drop them, but you don't have to do that.)
7. Using a fork you have dipped in cold water press the cookie dough. I like to do one horizontal press and one vertical press, making a sort of grid on the cookie. (If the fork starts to stick, dip it back in the cold water.)
8. Sprinkle the cookies with a pinch of sugar per cookie. (This is optional, my grandmother didn't do this, but I have determined that I like them better with a little bit of sugar on top. The key word here is little- don't go overboard with the sugar or the cookie will be too sweet. Also, if you want to make the cookies more Christmas-y, you can use sugar that has been dyed red or green.)
9. Place the cookies in the oven and bake for 10 minutes.
Keep an eye on your first batch of cookies as temperatures in ovens vary. You will know your cookies are finished when they are a beautiful golden color with some light browning on the edges and tips of the fork "grid" pattern in the cookie.
10. Once cookies are done, remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. Repeat until all the dough is gone.
I genuinely have no idea how long these cookies last, because they don't last long in my house.
* I do have a variation that I have created using this recipe that I have to include for my friend Beth. I love these cookies as they are, but they are also great as a base for making Earl Grey Butter Cookies. If you wish to make Earl Grey Butter Cookies, here are the modifications you have to make to the recipe.
Earl Grey Butter Cookie Modifications
I usually use stick butter when I make these cookies, so using one stick of butter, which I believe is the equivalent of half a cup of butter, put butter in a microwave safe container. I use my glass Pyrex measuring cup and melt butter in the microwave, in 15 second increments, until the butter has become completely melted and is a liquid.
Put one heaping teaspoon of loose Earl Grey tea into the butter. The flavor is best if this is a very robust and strong Earl Grey tea. Steep the tea in the butter, stirring occasionally for one to three hours. Once the butter smells fragrantly of Earl Grey, put the butter back in the fridge so that it hardens again. It will separate a bit, but this doesn't matter, you can reincorporate everything when you bring the butter back out to bring it to room temperature along with the rest of the butter. (You can strain the tea leaves out of the butter before you put it in the fridge, but I actually like the cookies with the tea leaves still in the cookie.)
When you are ready to make cookies, the Earl Grey butter you created will be included in your pound of butter. (So, if you use stick butter, that's three sticks of regular butter and one stick of the Earl Grey butter.) Then you just follow the recipe as it is written above.
And, as promised, here is the recipe for Cranberry Port Relish. This dish is great for Thanksgiving and for Christmas dinners as it tastes good on turkey, duck, chicken, and ham. I often halve this recipe and still have some leftover, as not all people are into cranberries. (I personally do like cranberries, but I love this relish.) Its super simple and really yummy and, as mentioned above, the leftovers work great to make party time meatballs!
Cranberry Port Relish
Ingredients
3 cups fresh or frozen cranberries (I usually use fresh)
1 1/2 cup port or cranberry-raspberry juice (You can use an inexpensive port, but the better the port, the better your flavors will be.)
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 cup golden raisins
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 tsp. ground ginger or 1/2 tsp. freshly grated ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg (I like freshly ground nutmeg, but I use less)
Instructions
1. In a large, heavy bottomed saucepan, combine all of the ingredients.
2. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally.
3. Once it has come to a boil, reduce heat to medium low; simmer, uncovered, 30 minutes or until cranberries have popped and liquid has slightly thickened.
4. Can be served warm or at room temperature.
Store in refrigerator or freezer in an air tight container.
Well, these were the recipes that people have asked me for this Christmas season. I hope that you will try them and they will become some of your Christmas traditions as well.
Happy Holidays Everyone!
